I'll Be Mother
by thelemonadebandit
Summary: A collection of short scenes detailing the childhood of the Holmes boys from the perspective of Mycroft Holmes.
1. Prologue

_Author's Note: The following is simply a series of interconnected scenes detailing the childhood of the Holmes boys through Mycroft's point of view, and is based upon the BBC version of the characters. There will be eighteen chapters, covering the first eighteen years of Sherlock's life._

On the day his little brother was born, Mycroft Holmes was six years old, and couldn't be bothered to care very much about the whole event. He did not honestly feel that anyone was particularly thrilled by the prospect of a baby in the family—in fact, from what he'd gathered listening at doors, it was somewhat of a mistake—so he didn't see why he should be excited, either. He was a bit curious, having never spent any real time around babies, but not curious enough to be persuaded out of waiting at home with his books. The only thing he knew for certain was that babies were small and drank milk from bottles, and that Mummy would be much happier when it was out of her tummy—or at least, that was what Mycroft hoped. She'd been complaining of the pain in her back for months now, and spending much of her time laid up in bed, moaning and calling for the nurse.

The next day, though, when Father took him to the hospital to see baby Sherlock, he was proven quite wrong. Mummy was just as ill as she'd ever been, propped up in the hospital bed with dark circles under her eyes and tubes running into her arms. This frightened Mycroft, and the six-year-old refused to look at the baby in the plastic crib until he was promised that his mother was simply recovering from a hard labor and would get better soon.

When he did finally peek at the sleeping infant, he was unimpressed.

"Do you want to hold him?" his mother asked, and he shook his head vigorously. The baby wriggled in its wrappings like a little caterpillar in a cocoon, and opened and closed its mouth like a fish out of water without opening its eyes. It was a foreign entity to Mycroft, and he wasn't fond of it.

"Come here," said Mummy. "Come." She patted the bed and the six-year-old clambered up beside her, happy to be welcomed into her warmth after many months of being shooed out of her bedroom. She reached out for the baby, and one of the nurses placed it into her arms.

"He's not so bad," she said. "Come now, Mycroft, he's your brother. You'll have to help look after him, you know. Teach him all the things you know. He's lucky to have such a smart big brother."

Mycroft was accustomed to receiving this kind of praise from his nannies and teachers, but he lit up at hearing it from his mother, who was normally ill, or busy, or had a headache whenever he had something important to tell her. He was pleased to know that she'd heard about how smart he was, albeit secondhand.

After another minute or so of wary distance, Mycroft grudgingly agreed to hold his brother, reaching out timidly to cradle the gurgling bundle of blankets and stare into the blinking blue eyes that peeked out from beneath the little blue cap. It wasn't so bad after all, he decided. A baby in the family might not be so terrible, especially considering the fond way his mother looked at him when he asked baby Sherlock what he'd like to learn first.

Mycroft couldn't help noticing, though, that when Father entered the room later on, he looked intently at the baby, but didn't hold him, and Mummy didn't ask him to.


	2. Year 1

Even in infancy, Sherlock was fussy, sickly, prone to tempers, and quite frankly—as the nurses often remarked in whispers—not _pretty_ for a baby. Mycroft knew that he, himself, had been considered quite a lovable baby, because his nanny mentioned it often. Adorable and affectionate, and with _meat_ on his bones, she would say, as babies should be. Sherlock, she would often mention, was nothing like that.

In the first year of Sherlock's life, Mycroft hardly noticed the baby's presence in the house. The house, after all, was quite large, and Mycroft was seven years old and attending school for most of the day. Mummy did, indeed, recover as promised, and spent a good deal more of her time entertaining guests or going out on trips with her friends. When she had guests, she would normally call Mycroft in and invite him to sit beside her, because the other ladies were quite fond of him, and he knew the sorts of things to say that would make them smile. He could recite poetry he'd learned, or tell them about books he'd read, and this would make his mother proud. He enjoyed her company, the clink of teacups, the way her perfume smelled, and the way her slender hand wrapped around his shoulder and pulled him close when he sat with her. He missed her when she left.

Sherlock, on the other hand, was not called for when guests came to call. Sometimes the other women would inquire about him, and Mummy would say that he was colicky or napping. A few times she called for the nanny to bring him down for a moment, and she would hold him on her knee for a few minutes, shower him with kisses, and then hand him back and send him back upstairs.

Aside from these moments, Sherlock spent all of his time with nannies, who quite disliked the child, and Mycroft quite forgot his charge to help teach Sherlock everything he knew, until one evening when the nanny brought him down to Father's study. Mycroft was standing beside Father's desk, reciting the day's lessons to prove what he'd learned in school, as he normally did before bed. When the nanny knocked and entered the room with Sherlock squirming in her arms, Mycroft was just as surprised as his father was.

"What is it?" Father asked, standing up. "If the boy's upset, take him to his mother. Where is that woman—Sylvia!"

"Mrs. Holmes is out tonight," the nanny interrupted. "I just thought you'd like to know that he walked. Just now, in the nursery."

"Oh," said Father, sitting down again. "Is that all? First steps?"

"He can walk?" Mycroft asked. "I didn't know babies could walk."

"Well, he's growing," said Father. "There's got to be a first time for everything." He waved his hand at the nanny and said, "Well, let's see it, then."

The woman set Sherlock on his feet carefully, gripping his little wrists above his head as he got his balance, and Mycroft frowned, wondering how it was possible that such tiny feet could hold anyone up. Then again, Sherlock wasn't very big. There wasn't much to hold.

As the nanny let go, Sherlock teetered, and Mycroft felt himself take a step forward to catch the baby before he fell. He didn't fall, though. He took a step, wobbly arms out in front of him, and then another, and then gracefully plunked onto his behind, cushioned by his diaper, and stared up at Mycroft with a curious expression.

"Two steps," remarked Father from his desk. "Does he speak yet?"

"No, sir," said the nanny, picking Sherlock up again and balancing him on her hip. "We've tried, but so far he only makes hand signals. No words."

Father seemed to have lost interest. He turned back to his papers and sent Mycroft out with the nanny, telling him to go to bed. But Mycroft was interested in the new discovery that babies could, in fact, learn new tricks.

"Could we teach him to talk?" he asked, as the nanny herded him up the stairs to his room. "Do you think I could teach him to talk?"

"Oh, I suppose," she replied. "If you say the same thing enough times, babies will pick up on it. He's bound to learn eventually, darling. I wouldn't worry about it."

Mycroft was seven years old. He was not _worried_. He was _curious_. In fact, for the next week and a half, he spent a good deal of his free time watching baby Sherlock toddle around and taking a new interest in being around his brother. He wanted to be the one to teach him to talk, and repeated the name "Mycroft" over and over whenever he was in the baby's presence.

Eventually, it worked. Sherlock's first word was indeed "Mycroft," but on a one-year-old tongue, the word came out sounding more like "mine."


	3. Year 2

Mrs. Holmes was gone more and more frequently as the months of Sherlock's infancy dragged on. In fact, she was not at home for the day Sherlock turned two, and only just barely made it home for Mycroft's eighth birthday party, which involved an extravagant amount of gifts, a guest list that included nearly every child at his primary school, and an enormous cake. Mummy flew in that morning from her trip to Italy and made it to the party just as it began, heralding the guests into the house with a lively manner and complaining afterwards of jetlag and exhaustion.

Father made an appearance at the party for exactly an hour, at the end, and he chatted politely with other parents and held the camera while the cake was cut and the candles blown out. As the guests left, he smiled and waved, as did Mummy, and Mycroft sat happily in the parlor, licking icing off his fingers and looking at the gifts piled all around him. It wasn't until the door closed on the final guest that Father turned, kissed Mycroft on the head, and told him to have a happy birthday, retreating immediately back into his study. Mummy watched him go with a sad look on her face, then sighed and sank into a chair.

"Oh, I've got _such _a headache," she moaned. "I feel ill. I need to sleep. Mycroft, darling, go and fetch Mummy the nurse, would you?"

Mycroft did as he was told. The nurse came promptly and told Mycroft to give his mother a kiss and then go up to his room and leave her to sleep, which he also did without complaint. Mycroft was excellent at doing what he was told. He wished Mummy would get better soon, because he wanted to tell her about all the things she'd missed in the past few weeks—how he'd learned to say six new words in Latin, and how Sherlock could now crawl both up and down the stairs by himself, and how Father had promised to take him along next time he went into London for business. But he knew better than to bother her with these things now. It was useless to talk to Mummy when she was ill. It simply wasn't done.

After being put to bed that night, Mycroft lay awake thinking about the things he would do tomorrow with all of his new toys and gadgets. He was not even near asleep when the sound of a loud clatter down the hall startled him, followed by his father's voice, shouting. Frightened, and wanting to make sure Father was alright, he slid out from between the sheets and tiptoed to the door, peering out into the hallway.

There was a light coming from his parents' bedroom, an open door, and Father's profile framed in the doorway.

"You're a grown woman, Sylvia!" Father was shouting. "You're a mother! You can't just go running off—"

"What does it matter where I'm running off to?" Mummy's voice was shrill and Mycroft wondered why Father would shout at her while she was sick with a headache. "You're always shut up with your work, how is that any different?"

"I see Mycroft _every day_," Father said. "I call him in every night, and what do you do? Invite him to tea? Show him off to your friends? He's a child, not a pet. You can't leave him here whenever you get tired—"

"How dare you," said Mrs. Holmes, and her profile now appeared alongside her husband's in the doorframe, their bodies casting long shadows across the hallway. "How _dare_ you. I _love _my children. I love him! He knows that!"

"Then why do you need to run off?" Father asked. "Answer that!"

"I am stifled here, I'm suffocating, and you—"

"Oh, it's me," said Father. "I see. It's _me_ you're running from. And to someone else, right?"

"_No_. I told you. That was only—"

Father's frame moved away from the doorframe. He shook Mummy's hand away from his shoulder and strode down the hallway, and Mycroft ducked back into his room, pressed against the door and listening to the footsteps.

"Beckett!" he heard Mummy shouting. "Wait!"

There was a sudden, shrill cry from far away. They'd woken Sherlock.

Mycroft could tell that Mummy and Father were just outside his door, by the close sound of their footsteps. Father's voice said, more quietly, "You've lost my trust, Sylvia. You're not getting it back. I'm not even sure _that one_ is mine."

"Of course he's yours!" Mummy said, and there was a gasp like she was crying.

"Get away—get off—get away from me!" said Father, and the sharp tone sent Mycroft scuttling back to his bed, where he pulled the covers up over his head and pretended to be asleep. He could hear the sound of heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs, and Mummy calling for a nurse, saying she felt like she would faint.

And of course, above it all, the incessant noise of Sherlock's crying.


	4. Year 3

Mycroft was nine years old when he came to the realization that Sherlock was going to need more looking-after than he had previously imagined—that is to say, Sherlock's odd behavior was not something he would likely grow out of with time, as the nannies and tutors had been suggesting. At the time of this realization Sherlock was three, and already spent the majority of his time terrorizing others. He didn't mean it, of course. There had always been something not quite right about the Sherlock. He was scrawny and had a pinched expression, quite unlike his brother, who had always been pleasantly warm as a child. Mycroft was of course becoming less warm now, as time went on and he began to emulate his father. But nevertheless he retained a sort of aloof friendliness, or what one might call charisma, and continued to charm his teachers and peers.

The incident which caused Mycroft to become more actively involved in looking after his brother at the age of nine was, simply put, a misunderstanding. Sherlock, after all, was only three, and even if the child had not lacked social skills to begin with, he certainly couldn't have been expected to know the details of social graces as a toddler. It was the reaction by Mr. Holmes that worried Mycroft. After all, there were probably other three-year-old children in the world who might, under certain circumstances, decide to take personal items out of the pockets of all the guests' coats during a dinner party and line them up on their bed for inspection. You couldn't very well call it thievery, since Sherlock clearly had no concept of money and wanted the items only for curiosity's sake. So when the nanny discovered what was going on, and dragged Sherlock down the stairs with an iron grip on his skinny little arm, and announced to their parents that their little boy was a thief, Mycroft saw it for a misunderstanding. What alarmed him was his father's solemn face as the man leaned down and hissed angrily at the boy, "You stay away from people's things. _Stay away _from them."

Mummy, of course, was flustered and embarrassed, and pulled her husband away quickly, and told Sherlock she was sure he didn't mean it, and told the nanny to take him back upstairs and to sort it out and for God's sake, keep him out of trouble can't you, and don't come waltzing into the dining room whenever there's a problem, can't you see we're entertaining? Mycroft followed them out and told the nanny he'd look after Sherlock while she sorted out the stolen items and returned them.

"Why did you take those things?" he asked, while slowly following his little brother up the stairs. He would've taken the small boy's hand to help him, but Sherlock liked to do things himself.

"I was just looking," Sherlock replied, in the earnestly confused tones of any other little boy in trouble. But Sherlock, of course, was not any other little boy in trouble. Sherlock was strange. He refused to show affection to any of his nannies; disobeyed them simply because he could; frequently ran away from the house to "explore," or perhaps simply to frighten the adults; drew all over the windows and walls, and insisted the drawings were important; screamed and clashed pots and pans together when he was bored. Some days he would sit and watch the people around him intently for hours, refusing to speak at all, and suddenly the day after that he would be running around, unstoppable, getting into everything.

The doctors and tutors often said that his behavior was for the sake of attention, but Mycroft didn't think so. Sherlock didn't seem to mind if he was being watched or not. Sherlock was just different, and there was hardly an explanation beyond that fact.

As he watched the nanny gathering up the careful line of wallets, handbags, compacts and pocket watches from where they'd been placed on Sherlock's bed, Mycroft realized that his brother was never going to be able to get on with Father and Mummy. It just wasn't possible. Mycroft resolved that, being the only truly sane member of the Holmes family, he would simply have to look after Sherlock himself.


	5. Year 4

By age four, Sherlock Holmes was quite able to read on his own. This was mainly because wanted to be read to, and his nannies (and Mycroft) got tired of it and told him to learn to do it himself. It seemed to take very little effort on his part. Most everyone who knew him was a bit baffled by the way he could spend hours sitting patiently in front of a book, at that age, but would cause absolute chaos if you tried to get him to sit through a twenty-minute dinner. Because of this fact, when Mr. and Mrs. Holmes had guests, it became customary to send Sherlock upstairs with a book until they left.

Mycroft was not sure exactly where Sherlock had picked up the pirate idea, but he could guess it must have been from one of those books. Upon arriving home from school one afternoon, he was suddenly assaulted by a flurry of flying limbs demanding that he surrender.

"I'm barely inside the _door_, Sherlock," the ten-year-old complained. "What are you on about?"

"I'm being a pirate!" the little boy replied, brandishing what looked suspiciously like a curtain rod from his bedroom. "Surrender!"

Just then, the nanny came rushing down the stairs frantically, spotted Sherlock, and tried to snatch the curtain rod away from him. The child plunked himself down onto the floor and screamed in protest.

"Stop that, Sher, we've talked about it," said Mycroft sensibly, picking his brother up off the ground. "You mustn't scream. It frightens people and makes Mummy's head hurt."

Sherlock was obliged to stop screaming, but held a firm grip on the curtain rod. Mycroft pried it away and gave it to the nanny.

"I've got a better sword for you," he promised, setting Sherlock down.

"Cutlass," the four-year-old corrected him. "I'm a pirate. I have a cutlass."

"Yes, that," Mycroft agreed. "Come upstairs. There's a cutlass in my room."

Having outfitted Sherlock with a blunt wooden sword he'd gotten years ago, along with an eyepatch he fashioned out of an old sock—which pleased Sherlock immensely—Mycroft herded his brother out into the back garden where he couldn't terrorize the nanny. Mummy was out on the patio, sitting under the shade with a tall glass of iced tea, and Mycroft sat beside her with his homework. Mummy tried to call Sherlock over to kiss him, but he was far too busy slashing at bushes. She settled by giving Mycroft a kiss instead, though he thought he was getting a bit too old for all that.

"What's he got on his head?" Mummy asked.

"Eyepatch," said Mycroft. "He's a pirate."

"Oh. That's a bit…well, that's quite normal, for a boy his age, don't you think?"

Mycroft shrugged. Mummy was still under the impression that Sherlock was going through a phase and that he would eventually grow up and stop being so…Sherlock.

Mycroft, of course, spent much more time around the boy than she did, and knew better. He kept glancing up at Sherlock every so often as he started on his homework, watching the little boy dart about the yard. Mummy had called a special doctor to come and talk with her younger son last month, a man with a soft voice and a blank face. They'd talked for hours until eventually Sherlock came running out of his room and started slamming every door in the house. He didn't talk for six days after that. The whole thing had apparently upset him very much, and Mycroft had to teach the boy rudimentary algebra just to get him to start talking again. It had upset Mummy too—Mycroft had heard her yelling at the man as she sent him away, and then for the next few days she complained of headaches.

He was just getting involved in his homework, finally, when a short, muffled cry came from nearby. His head snapped up, and in an instant he realized that Sherlock had fallen out of the tree at the edge of the yard and was lying crumpled on the grass.

Mummy realized it too. She shrieked, stood suddenly, and called frantically for someone to come help, spilling her glass in the process. Within that time, Mycroft was already kneeling beside his brother.

Sherlock's wrist was sticking in an odd angle, and it seemed clear to Mycroft that he'd broken it. Aside from the single, surprised cry at the fall, though, the little boy didn't make a sound. His face was white, and his lips pressed tight together, but he stared intently at his own wrist with a look of curious, detached fascination.

"You'll be fine," said Mycroft. "Doesn't it hurt?"

Sherlock nodded, his dark curls bouncing gently against his pale skin, and Mycroft said quietly, "Most little boys would cry."

And then suddenly Mummy was there, fussing over Sherlock and touching his face, and the nanny and the nurse had arrived, and the doctor was being phoned, and Mummy collected Sherlock into her arms, and as he was being carried away Mycroft saw that the 4-year-old had screwed up his face into a pained expression and was blinking away little tears.

And that was the first time Sherlock Holmes pretended to be normal.


	6. Year 5

Just after Sherlock turned five, he started primary school, and this led to the unprecedented event of Father calling for Sherlock in his study. Mycroft supposed that he should have expected it—after all, Father always called for Mycroft in his study in the evenings after school, to talk about what he'd learned. But at the age of twelve Mycroft no longer considered himself a child, and that meant that he could no longer deny or ignore the obvious fact that Father didn't like Sherlock.

But after his first day of school, Father called for Sherlock and talked to him for a few minutes before calling for Mycroft. When Mycroft found out about this he was suddenly worried, and he went to his little brother's bedroom immediately to find him lying on his bed on his back, feet propped up against the wall, head hanging upside-down off the side of the bed, reading a book.

"Sherlock?" said Mycroft. "Did you talk to Father?"

"Yes," said the little boy absently, not looking away from the book.

"What did you talk about?"

"School. My teacher. He gave me a book." Sherlock held out the book he was reading pointedly.

Mycroft frowned in confusion. Perhaps he'd been misreading the signs that Father didn't want anything to do with Sherlock. Or perhaps Sherlock was just old enough now that ignoring him wouldn't do any good.

"You know you have to be polite when Father asks you into his study," said Mycroft. Sherlock responded with a barely-perceptible shrug.

"And you can't…you know. Throw things. Or take things that belong to Father. Or look through his desk. Or _analyze_ anything. Are you listening, Sher?"

"Mmm-hm," Sherlock mumbled vaguely.

"Come on, Sherlock, listen for just a second, would you?" Mycroft said, exasperated. He tried but failed to take the book from his brother's hands. Sherlock snatched it away, but met Mycroft's eyes to show that he was listening.

"I know you don't know how to act around people," said Mycroft. "And you don't know that you're doing the wrong thing sometimes. Which is why you have to listen to me, alright? When I tell you what to do?"

"Like to kiss Mummy and not be loud around her," said the 5-year-old, nodding his head.

"Yes, like that," Mycroft agreed. "So just…if Father keeps calling for you, just be smart like you are, tell him what you learned, and don't fidget around or touch anything, alright?"

Sherlock nodded and turned his eyes back to his book, and Mycroft left the room still feeling a little confused.

And over the rest of the school year, Father did keep calling for Sherlock, the same way he called for Mycroft. Most of the time it seemed to work out fine. Except the one time, a Friday just before the summer holiday, when instead of leaving his father's study quietly and going upstairs, the little boy stormed out in a rage, ran up to his room, and started throwing all of his possessions onto the ground and kicking them across the floor.

At first this was an outburst that could be ignored and filed away as another unexplainable Sherlock display of boredom. But then it kept going, and the sound of objects being kicked around continued, and the nanny couldn't get him to stop it or to get into bed. Mummy got up, complaining of the noise, and the nanny asked her to make him stop, he completely ignored her.

"Come on, Sherly, please stop it," she begged. "What's wrong? Just tell us what's wrong. Mummy can fix it. _Please _stop it, dear, Mummy needs to sleep. Sherlock?"

There was absolute silence from the boy. Mycroft watched distantly from the hallway, trying to puzzle out what Father had done to upset him so.

"Beckett!" Mummy called down the stairs. "Would you leave your work for just _one minute_? We can't get him to stop!"

"Deal with your own son!" Father called back.

Sherlock dealt a death blow his chess set, which broke open and went scattering across the floor.

"Come on, darling," Mummy said desperately, burying her face in her hands and shaking her head in frustration. Mycroft decided he'd had enough and stepped into the doorway, brushing his mother aside.

"Sherlock Holmes!" he shouted, and his brother froze immediately. "Go. To. Bed."

In one last fit of anger the five-year-old seized a teddy bear off the floor and threw it at Mycroft's face. Then he stopped and plopped himself quietly down onto the bed with a sulky expression.

From that moment on, Mycroft became universally recognized in the Holmes household as the one who could deal with Sherlock. He never did figure out exactly what it was that Father had done to cause the eruption, but after that night, Father continued to call for Sherlock in his study after school—Sherlock just chose not to come every time. He only came when he felt like it.

Though he didn't approve, there was something about this particular response that Mycroft admired.


	7. Year 6

The Holmes brothers never had a period of time in their lives in which they actually attended the same school. The age gap was such that just as Sherlock had entered primary school, Mycroft had moved up to secondary, and for the first year of this, Mycroft didn't much bother to find out what Sherlock did in his classes. He dealt with his brother when he was at home—that much was quite enough.

When Sherlock entered his second year of primary school, however, a problem began to surface in the form of bruises. Mycroft initially assumed that the six-year-old was clumsy on the playground, which seemed perfectly in character. But after a while it got a bit out of hand, and Mycroft suspected that the other children probably didn't get along well with his admittedly strange little brother.

"Sherlock," he said on afternoon, examining the purple marks on the little boy's forearm and the side of his neck out of the corner of his eye. "Have you been fighting at school?"

"No," Sherlock replied absently, kicking his legs against his chair. He was sitting at the counter with a snack the nanny had made for him, and wasn't paying much attention to Mycroft, as usual.

"Where do those bruises come from, then?"

"Other boys. They're morons."

"You're too young for that kind of language," Mycroft said harshly.

"Fine. They're idiots."

"Stop that, Sherlock. So you _have_ been fighting."

Sherlock turned his head and glared pointedly at his brother.

"I _talk_," said the little boy angrily. "They're the ones hitting. I just talk."

"What do you say?"

Sherlock turned back to his snack and shrugged.

"Stop hitting me?" he muttered. For a six-year-old child, the tone he used was bitingly sarcastic.

Mycroft knew there was probably a reason for the other boys to bully Sherlock. He probably threatened them with his intellect, or offended them with the off-hand comments he didn't know were offensive, or frightened them with his anti-social behavior. There were _reasons_, he reminded himself, why this sort of thing might happen. But that did not make it, in any way, acceptable.

The solution was quite simple. Mycroft Holmes had always been charming and well-connected; there was a certain, subtle power to his words, and he knew it. He was unassuming, yes, and the "meat on his bones" was no longer cute, as it had been when he was a child. But somehow—perhaps from watching his father interact with other scientists and philosophers and government officials at parties, or from watching his mother entertain over tea, or from reciting everything he'd learned each night to Father, knowing that he'd be asked to defend it—well, somehow he'd become a twelve-year-old who was taken seriously by his teachers and respected by his peers. People listened to him, and he knew how to use that talent.

The next day, Mycroft called Sherlock's teacher at her office, from the phone in his father's study, which was left unoccupied during a dinner party. He pretended to be Father, which she believed, and informed her in no uncertain terms exactly how important it was for her to look after the well-being of his son on the playground and in the classroom. The Holmes were a powerful family.

This, however, was only the first step. The second step was to wait until the following Wednesday, when he was released from school early, and have the nanny take him by Sherlock's primary school before dropping him off at home.

The primary school was still in session when he strode through the doors. He intentionally avoided Sherlock's classroom and instead found the classroom for the students in grade three. He stood casually against the wall across from the door for about five minutes, until the bell rang, and he approached a certain little boy hurrying out into the hall with a stack of books.

"Adam," he said sharply, and the boy turned. Confronted with a big, scary twelve-year-old, his eyes widened and he stopped in his tracks.

"You—you're Mycroft Holmes, aren't you?" he stammered.

"Yes. You've been by my house a few times at parties. I'm glad you remember me. Your father works for mine." Mycroft knew how to keep his voice amiable and still appear incredibly threatening. It reminded him, somehow, of Mummy with her dinner guests.

"You're in secondary," said Adam, looking around nervously. "What are you doing here?"

"My brother, Sherlock," said Mycroft. "He's in the first grade. So's your little sister, yes?"

The boy nodded dumbly.

"I can't be here to look after him," Mycroft continued. "I'd like you to do that for me, please. Yourself, or get your friends to do it—it doesn't matter to me. You're bigger than he is, protecting him shouldn't be difficult for you. But if my brother keeps coming home with bruises, your father will lose his job. That's a promise."

Mycroft knew he shouldn't enjoy the look of fear on Adam's face as he nodded and skittered away. He'd never threatened someone like that before—certainly he'd gotten bullies to leave _him_ alone, when he was Sherlock's age, but starting something like this was a bit different.

Of course he didn't mean to truly lay it all on Adam. He knew that word would get around, and a little bit of fear would lead to a lot once it spread, and everyone in the school would soon know that picking on Sherlock would lead to retribution from his scary big brother. But even knowing that he didn't truly plan to toy with Adam's family or his father's job, he still felt a little guilty, causing that kind of fear.

When Sherlock stopped coming home with bruises, though, he decided he didn't feel bad enough to want to take it back.


	8. Year 7

Mycroft had always, ever since he could remember, had simultaneously lots of friends and no friends at all. That is to say that he's always been friendly and acquainted with nearly everyone, but always slightly detached. He trusted none of them.

He was a teenager now—just barely, but a teenager nonetheless—so when he had this thought about the trust issue he simply dismissed it as teenage angst that should probably be ignored. After all, he reminded himself, he was quite well-adjusted and had little reason to complain. He could get nearly anyone to do what he asked, and really, what more could you need? So he had friends. He had plenty of friends.

Sherlock, on the other hand, had never had anything resembling a friend. When Mycroft gave the matter some thought, he discovered that he had no idea what Sherlock would even _do_ with a friend if he had one. Pick-pocket him, like he still did to house guests on occasion? Correct him constantly, like he did to his teachers? Experiment on him, like he did to his nannies?

Having decided that it was probably for the best Sherlock didn't have friends his own age, Mycroft was incredibly surprised one day to hear the sounds of a conversation coming from Sherlock's bedroom late one evening. The nanny had gone home, so it couldn't be her. And it certainly wasn't Father or Mummy. So who on earth was that boy talking to?

The door was shut, but leaning against it, Mycroft could clearly hear Sherlock talking on the other side. Explaining something, to someone.

"…the point is that a tesseract is used theoretically…maybe philosophically, even, in the book. Well, it's used to bring the plot along, really, and I guess it stands for something, too. But that's not _all _it is. There's actual scientific substance to it, with the right equipment, someday it could really happen. I think. I mean, the idea of time, it's…"

Mycroft pushed the door open slowly, and Sherlock's talking immediately stopped. The seven-year-old sat alone in the middle of the floor, a book open on his lap, staring up at Mycroft with a blank expression.

"You're interrupting," he said.

Mycroft glanced around, and saw no one. This worried him a bit more than he wanted to admit.

"Who are you…who are you talking to in here, Sherlock?" he asked gently.

"The bear," Sherlock replied, nodding to a stuffed teddy bear on the window sill. Mycroft took a deep breath.

"I'm not _crazy_, Mycroft," Sherlock said irritably, before his brother could find words to express his concern. "Well, at least, I'm not schizophrenic. I _know_ the bear's not going to talk back."

"Then why…?"

"Because I think better talking," said Sherlock. "And the bear's not doing me much good otherwise. And it's not going to _interrupt_." Here he glared pointedly at Mycroft, who stepped out and shut the door.

The next day, after asking about what Mycroft had learned in school, Father asked what he thought he might want to be when he grew up.

"I guess…I suppose I'd like to be a philosopher," he replied. "Or a scientist. Like you, Father."

Father laughed.

"The way you are around people, Mycroft?" he asked, smiling. "You're far too powerful to be a scientist." With a thoughtful expression he added softly, "If anyone is going to end up like me…it'll be your brother."

Mycroft felt a strange pang of betrayal at that. Even as the favored older son, he couldn't compete with Sherlock's intelligence. And somehow, though Sherlock didn't get along with Father, he'd ended up more like him.


	9. Year 8

When Sherlock was eight years old, Mummy decided to force him into taking violin lessons.

This decision, as far as anyone else in the house was concerned, was completely inexplicable. It was perhaps the worst decision ever made in the history of mankind, according to Mycroft. It was probably an attempt to give Sherlock some kind of "constructive outlet," as his teachers were always suggesting, but it had been a clear failure from the start. Everyone, even Mummy, had informed him that there was no need to keep up the lessons or to keep playing the bloody instrument in the house, but Sherlock insisted. He did it all on his own.

There was no good reason for him to be attached to the thing, or to the idea of playing it. Mycroft was in fact convinced that the only reason the 8-year-old liked the violin so much was because everyone else _hated_ it.

But the violin stuck around, and it was, in part, the way that Sherlock stumbled upon the idea of solving mysteries. A cousin, Charles, who was near Sherlock's age, had come to stay over the holiday that year, and he couldn't stand the noise any more than the rest of the house could. In fact, unlike Mummy, Father, and Mycroft, he decided to do something about it. After a day or two, the violin suddenly and mysteriously disappeared.

Sherlock, of course, noticed right away when he returned to his room after dinner. Mycroft, whose room was just down the hall, could hear him shouting, "Where's my violin! Charles, what've you done with it!"

Mycroft sighed, anticipating another shouting match between those two, and followed his brother downstairs.

"I haven't done nothing," the boy said coldly.

"_Anything_," Sherlock corrected. "Haven't done anything." He fell suddenly silent, looking the other boy up and down carefully with a look of concentration on his face, then suddenly gasped.

"Charles, how _could _you!" he said angrily, stomping his foot, and he turned heel and ran straight out to the back garden. There was no hesitation or searching; Mycroft followed at a distance and watched Sherlock head straight for the patch of raspberries along the northern edge of the yard. He returned immediately, brushing dirt off his beloved possession.

"Just think if I wouldn't have noticed it missing!" he muttered crossly. "Would've stayed out all night and been ruined with the rain."

"How did you know it was there?" Mycroft asked.

The eight-year-old gazed up at his brother with a confused expression, as if the question itself were so obvious it was absurd.

"The berries," he said simply.

"Yes, what about them?"

"He'd been eating them," said Sherlock, looking bored now as he studied his instrument for scratches. "Red stains on his fingers? They weren't there before dinner. We don't have berries inside the house. And Charles wouldn't go out to the bushes just for fun, he'd rather sit around, but if he did end up there for some other reason he wouldn't miss out on the chance to eat, would he?"

Charles, who was standing a few paces behind Mycroft, gaped in amazement and stared down at his fingers.

"You could tell that from my fingers?" he asked finally. Sherlock looked up with an expression of mild surprise.

"I guess," he said. Then looking at Mycroft for confirmation he asked, "Can… can most people not?"

Mycroft shook his head. "No, but it's alright. I suppose it's quite useful, don't you think?"

Sherlock shrugged, muttered something about how everyone has eyes, and bounded back up the stairs with his violin, which he proceeded to play loudly for the rest of the evening.

Charles found the whole thing quite fascinating and continued to steal and hide Sherlock's things in exceedingly more unusual places, which should have infuriated anyone else, but which in fact Sherlock didn't seem to mind. He almost seemed to enjoy it. Mycroft wondered if going around by himself, having a grand time solving a mystery that someone else had left behind for him, was the closest Sherlock would ever come to actually playing with another child.

It was interesting to watch, though, despite being a bit unnerving. Mycroft suddenly realized that all those moments where Sherlock had simply been sitting and silent and staring—the moments in between temper tantrums and outbursts where he appeared to be doing nothing—he'd simply been observing. Learning. He didn't understand how to get along with people, but he did understand them in a different way. He understood exactly where Charles would and wouldn't hide things, why he would only put something on the left side of Father's study and not the right, and why he would never put something in Mycroft's room. At eight years old, it became clear that even though Sherlock didn't function like a member of the human world, he certainly knew a lot about it.

When Mummy found out about what was going on she thought it was a game, which it hadn't been at first, but which it was admittedly becoming, since Sherlock enjoyed it so much the more challenging it became. She praised his new skill and told him it was nice to see him playing with his friend, a comment which Sherlock protested by insisting that Charles could never be his friend, and that he didn't need friends to play.

When Father found out, he nodded with mild interest and gave Sherlock a stack of books on psychology and deduction.

When Charles left after the holiday, Sherlock was somewhat disappointed, but it wasn't over the loss of the boy himself—it was just the interest that the game had provided.

"Maybe he'll come back next year," Mycroft pointed out, trying to cheer his bored-looking brother up. Sherlock flopped onto a chair in the sitting room and rolled his eyes.

"I don't want him _back_. He's an idiot."

"But you had fun, didn't you?"

"It was enjoyable," Sherlock agreed. "But I can come up with better things to do. I didn't like Charles, anyway." With a sigh, the little boy added quietly, "He always called me a freak."

"You're not a freak, Sherlock," Mycroft assured him.

"Sociopath, though," said Sherlock.

"What?"

"I read it," the boy replied, getting up from the chair and heading upstairs. "In a book. I think it fits well."

"Hey, wait," said Mycroft, following after him. "Sher, you're not—"

"It's alright, Mycroft," said Sherlock, with a wave of his hand. "It hardly matters."


	10. Year 9

The following year, Mummy started getting really sick again. At least that was what people called it—but Mycroft was fifteen, far too old to fall for that, and he knew that by _sick _they meant _very not right._ He remembered vaguely that this had happened before, when he'd been too young to understand it; it was associated, in his mind, with Sherlock's birth, and he could vaguely recall Mummy being shut away in her room for long periods of time while she was pregnant and perhaps even before that.

At that time, Mycroft had thought she really was sick, but now he was much older and could tell that there was really nothing wrong with her. Headaches, which she'd always had. And sometimes she was tired, she stayed in bed, she didn't want to see anyone—but other times, she threw enormous dinner parties, stayed up all night, and took spontaneous trips to France.

These sorts of things weren't exactly things Mummy had never done. She'd always done them. They just hadn't been quite so severe before, or lasted so long, in the past years. They hadn't led to her staying in bed for over a week at a time. They hadn't led to the giant rows that happened almost daily now, between Mummy and Father. They hadn't led to Father trying to ship Sherlock and Mycroft off to their grandparent's over the holidays, so they wouldn't have to be around her while she was "sick."

Mycroft worried about Mummy, but he tried not to think about it too much, because Mummy would work things out eventually, and meanwhile it was more important to worry about Sherlock. While Father worried about Mummy, and Mummy worried about herself, Sherlock had no one but Mycroft to worry about him.

There was, of course, no one in particular worrying about Mycroft, because Mycroft could take care of himself, just like Father.

Father had been attending parent-teacher conferences for Sherlock this year, because Mummy, who usually met with the teachers, couldn't be counted on to keep her appointments. This was leading to a great deal of strife between Sherlock and Father, who couldn't understand why the nine-year-old kept offending and correcting his teachers, why he hid a live frog in his desk, or why he told one of the other children that she was adopted (which happened to be true, but which the girl hadn't known until Sherlock said it). And of course Sherlock didn't understand why all of those things were inappropriate, and to top it all off, he didn't know when he was being insulting. So things between Sherlock and Father were not at their best.

The Christmas holiday was the worst that year. It was six months since Mummy had started getting worse, and though she was on a high point—after convincing Father to keep the boys at home—there was no telling when she might flip. She did last, right up until Christmas, throwing extravagant holiday parties, catching the boys to give them kisses whenever they walked by, decorating the whole house and spending ridiculous sums of money on lavish gifts. Christmas morning, even, she was exuberant. Mycroft and Sherlock received piles of books, and cassette tapes, and new clothing and shoes and bicycles and posters to hang on their walls, and Mummy laughed and made them hot chocolate, and Father watched everything warily, and Sherlock, of course, did not say thank-you for his gifts.

And then Christmas dinner came, and Mummy became a mess. Mycroft didn't know how it happened, exactly. He just knew that there was a loud clattering in the kitchen, and when he rushed in Mummy was in a heap on the floor with a broken plate, sobbing, and Father was helping her off the ground and up the stairs to bed.

"Boys, dinner is on the table," Father said, as he ushered Mummy up the stairs. She was mumbling apologies and mumbling something about being an awful mother. "Mycroft, just look after your brother, will you?"

Mycroft nodded, but the two of them just stood there watching from the kitchen door as their parents disappeared up the stairs. After a moment Sherlock went to the table and started eating, a new book he'd just received open on his lap, while Mycroft just stood and watched numbly.

"She'll get better, you know," the nine-year-old said finally, glancing up from the book.

"What?"

"Mummy," said Sherlock. "She's only like that because her medications have changed. She'll get better. Well—back to normal."

"Her medications have—what are you talking about?" Mycroft stuttered. Sometimes it was infuriating to have Sherlock speak like this, as if the world were simple, as if everyone saw it like he did.

"I'm talking about…well you do _know_ she's got some form of bipolar disorder, don't you?" Sherlock frowned at his older brother in some disbelief, and Mycroft pretended he was not alarmed. He said nothing.

"Anyway, the medications changed, that's all," Sherlock continued. "It's obvious if you've ever bothered to notice her medicine cabinet. And the side effects, of course. The whole behavior, really. It's all a bit obvious."

"Don't talk about Mummy like that," Mycroft ordered.

"I'm not talking about her any way," Sherlock replied. "It's a fact, not an insult." He glanced back down at his book, then sighed with disappointment, closed it, and set it down next to his plate.

"The mystery novels might have been a nice idea," he muttered, "but I'm only a chapter in and I already know the ending. That's dull." After a pause he added, "You're not eating, does that mean you're still worried? I told you she'll get better."

"Yes of course I'm still worried," said Mycroft harshly. "It's Christmas."

"Well, yes," the nine-year-old agreed. "I guess that is rather troublesome." Sherlock stood and walked past his brother, heading for the stairs. He hesitated, turned, and seemed to be thinking deeply about what might be appropriate to say.

"Mummy will be fine," he said finally. "Father doesn't understand me, but she does a bit, I think. It's aesthetic, really, that she's got too many emotions and I haven't got enough. Anyway, she'll be fine, so…" The boy was obviously struggling uncomfortably with his words, and he shifted awkwardly.

"So happy Christmas, Mycroft," he said finally, and hurried up the stairs.


	11. Year 10

Sherlock was ten years old when he caused the divorce.

Of course, it wasn't fair to say he caused it, and Mycroft knew that, but he was sixteen, and he shouldn't have to deal with this. He was sixteen, and just beginning to set his sights on the perfect university. He was sixteen, and starting to realize that mingling with the guests at his mother's dinner parties was making connections he could use in the future. He was sixteen, and the top of his class, and a nominee for student government, and far too busy with his own life to notice what his little brother was investigating until it was too late.

It had not, of course, escaped his noticed that the ten-year-old had begun reading the newspapers and spouting off theories about every case he came across, whether or not anyone was around to hear him. He'd be reading quietly and then suddenly jab a finger at the headlines and yell about how someone was guilty and another innocent, babbling details about a person's photograph or the victim's shoes. Mycroft felt that this was a much better use of his energy than most of his previous hobbies, and Sherlock seemed happier and easier to manage when he was doing it, so no one interfered.

The idea that perhaps Sherlock might be studying and deducing conclusions about his own family never crossed Mycroft's mind until the one rare evening when all four of them were actually sitting at the dining room table, eating dinner together. Mummy—who had, indeed, gotten much better in the past months, or at least gone back to normal—had been surprised when Father came out of his study to join them for the meal. Normally he was busy and took meals on his own.

"How is your research going, Beckett?" Mummy asked after a while of silence.

"Slow," Father replied. "It's all—well, I'm sure it wouldn't interest you."

Another silence. Sherlock pushed his food around on his plate, looking bored, until Mycroft fixed him with a disapproving glare.

"I'm going into London again next week," Mummy said cheerfully. "Do a bit of shopping with some friends."

"Which friends?" Father asked.

"Oh, just…a few, I'm not certain yet," Mummy replied.

"Mr. Wilson, I expect," said Sherlock, still looking bored, leaning his head on his fist with one elbow on the table. "Mummy's been dating him for months now."

Mummy gasped, dropped her fork, and Mycroft watched it clatter to the ground. Looking back and forth between his parents he could see the shock on both faces.

"Sherlock," said Mummy. "Darling, where did you hear a thing like that?"

"Letters, unusually long phone calls, expensive gifts that wouldn't come from an uninterested friend, the eye contact, the way his—" The ten-year-old stopped short when Mycroft kicked him, hard, under the table, and he finally looked up from his food to notice the looks on his parent's faces. He glanced back and forth, confused.

"I didn't…was it a secret?" he asked innocently.

"You _idiot_," Mycroft hissed, feeling the heat rise to his face. "Why can't you ever just shut up?"

Father pushed his chair back from the table and stood.

"Again, Sylvia?" he asked. "I think that's enough, don't you? That's enough."

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," said Mummy. "You're always working, what was I meant to do? You're never—"

Father turned heel and walked calmly out of the room without a word. Mummy, tears glimmering in her eyes, stood clumsily and raced after him, shouting his name.

Sherlock met his big brother's eyes across the table, finally looking sorry about what he'd said.

"Get up," Mycroft ordered. "Go to bed."

"It doesn't make sense," said Sherlock. "Why they would be so upset. Why are they so upset? It works, doesn't it? Father is busy, and Mummy—why would he be upset?"

"You don't understand because you'll _never _understand!" Mycroft shouted. He felt his hands curling into fists. He could see everything unraveling already in his mind—the fights, the divorce that would follow, how much it would destroy Mummy.

"You're never going to figure it out," he said. "It's a _human_ thing, alright? Now go to bed. Go."

"You're just like Father," said Sherlock quietly, and Mycroft tried to ignore the look of pain on the little boy's face as he pushed back his chair and ran upstairs. The loud, piercing shrieks of his violin started only minutes later.

Mycroft stayed where he was, listening to the sounds of his parents yelling somewhere down the hall and the sounds of his brother's playing upstairs. He took a single, deep breath and covered his face with shaking hands.

He regretted everything, and knew that everything was ruined.


	12. Year 11

The proceedings for the separation were long and painfully drawn-out. It took nearly a full year to move into the new house with Mummy. Meanwhile there was a good deal of shuffling between the homes of relatives, and in between, long periods of living in Father's house and feeling as if the whole place had gone suddenly empty. Sherlock spent so much time playing the violin, he actually became increasingly good at it. Aside from this, Mycroft hardly noticed what his brother was doing. Sherlock preferred to be left alone, and Mycroft found it difficult to look him in the eye. It only made him feel guilty.

In the meantime, Mycroft was now seventeen and more than ready to leave home for university. He was in his last year of secondary school, and being a favorite of most of his teachers and nearly all of his peers, he found it easy to spend an above-average portion of his time doing activities that kept him away from the rest of the crumbling Holmes family.

The new house was ready by spring, every room finally unpacked except for Sherlock's. The eleven-year-old's report card came late that year, having been forwarded from Father's address to the new one, and Mycroft found it lying on the kitchen table one afternoon when he got home from school. He looked it over with a bit of a sigh and trudged up to his brother's room, coming in without bothering to knock, because knocking would be ignored.

Sherlock was sitting on the floor amidst stacks of disorderly cardboard boxes, a junior chemistry set spread out before him on the carpet along with several glass jars and silver trays from the kitchen. The boy was staring intently at his own palm, and ignored Mycroft's presence entirely.

"I've gotten your report," Mycroft said. "From school."

"Not exactly interesting," Sherlock muttered.

"You've failed nearly everything except science."

"I believe I got a passing score in physical education, too," the boy replied, and Mycroft was a bit surprised at the sarcasm.

"You can pass all your classes if you want to," Mycroft insisted. "You're a genius. Why aren't you passing?"

"Because," said Sherlock, picking up a glass beaker and holding it carefully to the palm he'd been staring at. "Because they're useless and boring."

"It doesn't—" Mycroft started, then stopped suddenly, drawing in his breath sharply. "Sherlock, is that _blood_?"

"Yes," said Sherlock calmly, and his palm tilted to reveal a cut on his hand, blood dribbling down his wrist as he collected it in the beaker.

Mycroft forgot, for a moment, the distance he'd put between himself and his brother, and for the moment he felt like he was ten years old again and rushing to the aid of his little brother the pirate, who'd fallen out of a tree in the yard. He was suddenly by Sherlock's side, and the younger boy flinched away from his touch.

"I'm _fine_!" he shrieked, putting the beaker away quickly and pressing a bit of gauze against the cut. "I needed it for an experiment!"

"Sherlock Holmes, you are _not_ to be cutting yourself for experiments! You'll scare Mummy to death!" said Mycroft angrily, backing away quickly and standing to his full height. The eleven-year-old simply glanced up at his brother and smirked.

"And you, apparently," he noted.

Mycroft had no response to that. He backed up to the door.

"That is—you can't do that," he stuttered. "Don't do it again. And Sherlock, if you don't start passing your classes, so help me, I'll take that set away from you." He gestured at the chemistry items and Sherlock glared crossly in his direction.

"Mummy wouldn't let you."

"I'll break it. Honestly, how do you expect to get into a university someday if you don't pass any of your classes?"

"Worry about your own life," Sherlock mumbled.

"I'll tell Mummy you stole all her perfume," Mycroft threatened, and his brother paled.

"You wouldn't," he cried. "You wouldn't!"

"Just read your books, and do your homework! Is that so much to ask?"

Sherlock crossed his arms across his chest with a sulky expression.

"Fine," he said. "I'll do the homework. Now go away."

Mycroft stepped out into the hallway, started to shut the door behind him, then peeked his head back in and asked, "You do know you haven't got a nanny to pick up after you anymore, right? These boxes have got to be unpacked."

"Throw the boxes out if you want, most of my things are rubbish anyway," said Sherlock, involved in his work again. "I'm not picking it up."

Mycroft closed the door and sighed, leaning against the wall in the hallway. He missed the days when he could simply shout at Sherlock to go to bed and the little boy would listen. These days, it just got harder and harder to control him—maybe just because he was older, maybe because of the amount of change and growing up that had to happen in the past year, but most likely, because Sherlock simply didn't see Mycroft as the brother who took care of him anymore. Mycroft could see that plainly enough. Mycroft was just another one of _those people_ now— another stranger held just outside the mystery of Sherlock's world.


	13. Year 12

Mycroft Holmes was well-suited to university life. He had two top choices, both quite prestigious, and both of which accepted him almost immediately on account of his grades, winning interview, and the high praise of the teachers who wrote his recommendations. In the end, he chose the one that was closer to Mummy's new home—he didn't like the idea of Sherlock and Mummy being constantly alone together. Complications would arise. He made a point to visit nearly every weekend, and sometimes oftener.

Economics presented itself immediately as an subject of particular interest, as well as business and government. Within his first few months, he had already become a somewhat unofficial advisor to the student president, who considered him a personal friend, and been invited to participate unofficially in the newspaper and debate clubs, as well. Though he had always had an effect of this nature on his peers, Mycroft was still a little surprised at the amount of power they gave him, believing all the while that they knew and could trust him completely. Trust, he discovered, was easy to manufacture, as was power—he simply had to be well-spoken, carry himself as if he were already quite important, and allow everyone else to believe they were making the decisions he subtly suggested completely on their own. Occasionally pulling out the connections he'd made through his parents, and the demanding voice he'd learned that made his brother behave, didn't hurt either.

Mycroft found he quite liked being listened to, and feeling as if he had everything under control.

Mummy was quite distraught when he left the house, of course, but she seemed to be handling herself just as well as could be expected, after a few months. Father, who Mycroft now saw only over holidays, seemed vaguely pleased that he was doing well, but didn't speak much.

The week before spring holidays, Mycroft received a call on his mobile phone from Sherlock's secondary school. It was just past noon, and he had another class to get to, but he stopped to answer it anyway.

"Mr. Holmes?" said a stern voice on the other end. "You're listed as Sherlock's parental contact. We tried to reach his mother, but she wasn't available."

Mycroft raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise, but said simply, "Is something wrong with him?"

"He's been suspended from school for fighting," said the man. "We'd like someone to come and pick him up. He's waiting in the office."

Mycroft held the phone away from him for a moment and whispered incredulously, "_Fighting?_ Really?" He groaned, thinking of the class he'd have to miss, and brought the phone back to his lips, informing the man curtly that he'd be there shortly.

Twenty minutes later he pulled up to the school and strode into the office, feeling cross and frustrated. Sherlock was sitting on a chair in the corner, and glanced up at Mycroft with a blank expression before looking away and continuing to scuff his feet absently against the carpet. The man at the desk looked Mycroft up and down with confusion.

"I'm here for Sherlock," he said curtly.

"I'm sorry—I was expecting—you're not his father, surely?" the man asked.

"I'm his brother, and I'll do just as well as a parent. Quite a bit better, actually, I should expect."

"Well, we've gotten quite a few complaints from the teachers about his behavior. Apparently he's been quite disruptive during class—"

"He does tend to correct the teachers when they're wrong, if that's what you mean," Mycroft snapped.

"When the _teachers_ are—? Come now. He's twelve years old."

"He's bright."

The man behind the desk stood up, looking indignant, but Mycroft, at eighteen years old, still seemed to tower above him. He huffed angrily.

"Well," he went on, "there have also been incidents with the other children. I've been told he's been quite cruel to several other boys, and one's been sent home with a concussion!"

"If you're trying to insinuate that the cruelty did not go both ways," said Mycroft, "I'll be alarmed with your logic. I'm taking my brother home, but as I find it entirely impossible that his actions were not provoked or, more likely, done in self-defense, I'll be ignoring your suspension and bringing him back tomorrow. If you require further proof, I'll be happy to talk to the other boys and bring the full story to you."

The man behind the desk sat down, looking dizzy.

"Come on, Sherlock," said Mycroft, and the twelve-year-old stood and followed his brother out the door.

"A concussion, really?" Mycroft asked, as they headed out to the car.

"If you understand the human body, it's not difficult to figure out how to cause damage without much effort," Sherlock explained.

"And what did he do? Call you names?"

The little boy rolled his eyes.

"I'm completely used to that," he said. "It doesn't bother me."

"What, then?"

"He insulted Mummy."

Surprised, Mycroft set a hand lightly on his little brother's shoulder for a moment, then quickly drew it away.

"Good boy," he muttered.


	14. Year 13

The separation of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes caused more problems than Mycroft anticipated, or noticed at first. Now that he was off at university, out of the house and distracted by the start of his own life, it was easy to overlook what was going on at home. In that first year, he noticed, of course, that he saw Father less, and that he seemed to be the only member of the family still in contact with the man; and he noticed, as well, that Mummy was often difficult to reach, and that Mycroft himself was still acting as a parent to Sherlock, filling in the places where Mummy couldn't be. But that much, at least, had always been true. He imagined that in the times he wasn't home, life was running as smoothly as it could for the rest of the family.

One evening towards the beginning of his second year at university, he realized that this wasn't true. For the first time in his life, Mycroft received a phone call from Sherlock.

"You'd better come," the thirteen-year-old said. "I don't know what to do with Mummy."

"What's wrong with her?" Mycroft demanded.

"She's locked herself in her room. Also the lights are out."

"Sherlock," said Mycroft, exasperated. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"It would be helpful if you could come. Soon. Or immediately."

When he arrived, Mycroft found the house cold and dark. Sherlock was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room with a newspaper in his lap, surrounded by a small circle of candles that shadowed his sharp, angular face with a flickering yellow light.

"Why are the lights out?" Mycroft asked.

Sherlock looked up and tossed his brother several envelopes.

"I gather it's about money," the boy said. "I figured that's more your area."

Mycroft squinted at the addresses on the envelopes, and after a moment the realization struck him with surprise. It was so obvious that he was appalled with himself. Of course Mummy had always depended on Father's money, and was used to living a lavish lifestyle with it. Of course she didn't know anything about budgeting, let alone working, and the child support check Father sent for Sherlock wouldn't be nearly enough. Father had always made quite enough money to deal with everything, and Mycroft had never worried about the expense of anything before. Father's work paid for his tuition, his car—how on earth had he forgotten that Father wasn't looking after Mummy and Sherlock like that anymore?

So the lights were off because they couldn't pay the bills. And the heating, probably, as well. And Mummy had locked herself in her room—well, that much was explainable, now. She couldn't handle the stress. Mycroft was quite used to his mother's occasional breakdowns.

When the shock wore off, after a moment, he crossed to the couch, grabbing one of the candles as he passed. He sat down and began carefully opening the envelopes, one by one, to examine the damage.

"Sherlock," he said calmly. "Go and make some tea."

"Why should I?"

"Go and make tea," Mycroft repeated, more sternly. "And bring it up to Mummy. Now. While I sort out this mess."

"What do I say to her?"

"Tell her to let you in because you've got tea, of course. And tell her that I'm here and I'm fixing it. I'll have the lights back by tomorrow."

With a huff of adolescent defiance, Sherlock unfolded his long, gangly legs and went to do as he was told.

"How will you get the lights back?" Sherlock called from the kitchen. "Doesn't that require you to pay for them?"

"Yes, and I'll pay for them," Mycroft replied tersely.

"You haven't got a job."

"Will you leave this to me, please? Go on and solve petty crimes or whatever it is you do, and for God's sake let me worry about _money_."

Sherlock hushed up, as he was told, and left Mycroft in the candlelight to worry over the state of these bills, the impossible numbers that just kept piling up and piling up.

The next day, Mycroft showed up unannounced at his father's house. Father was in the study, as always, and surprised to see him. The man had been looking worse for wear every time Mycroft saw him—no longer clean-shaven, no longer well-slept, no longer looking capable of a smile.

"Come in, come in. How are your classes?" Father asked, motioning for Mycroft to sit in the chair beside the desk. Mycroft declined.

"I'm not here to talk about classes," he said, tossing the bills from last night onto the desk. Father looked over them curiously for a second, then frowned.

"What are these?" he asked.

"You know what they are," said Mycroft. "The electricity was shut off to Mum's house last night. These date back months. Nearly a year. How long have you known?"

Mr. Holmes took the papers and carefully slid them back over the mahogany surface of the desk towards his son, an icy look of indifference on his face.

"These are not my responsibility," he said.

Mycroft leaned over the desk and slammed his palm down hard over the papers, glaring into his father's eyes.

"You have plenty of money you are _not using_. You don't leave the house. You don't do anything. You don't have to like it, but you will do something about this."

"Don't you tell me what I will do!" Mr. Holmes shouted, rising from his chair. The two stood eye-to-eye with the desk a wall between them. Mycroft knew, he could see in his father's eyes, that this was the first time his father saw him as the man he was now and not as a child.

"That woman is not my wife," he hissed. "And the child I am paying for her to care for is _not my son_. I will not be responsible for them!"

"That woman is my mother," said Mycroft, taking a step back and composing himself quickly so that his voice came out calm and powerful. "And that child is my brother. They're my family, and I am yours."

Father sat down slowly, folding his hands together carefully, and for a fraction of a second Mycroft saw the ice of his hardened expression crack.

"She's an adult," he whispered. "She can take care of it."

"You know she can't," said Mycroft. "And whatever she's done to you, Sherlock's just a child. It's not his fault and you know he doesn't deserve it. Growing up with just her. And all of this." He gestured vaguely at the bills, but they both knew it was about much more than that.

"He's a child," Mr. Holmes agreed. "He's not _my _child."

Mycroft took a deep, slow breath.

"Pay these," he said. "Just these ones. This once. Pay these for me and I'll take care of the rest of them."

There was a silence as the two men, each with a face like stone, stared at each other, and finally Father nodded.

Mycroft turned and left the room, already thinking of exactly which connections could get him the best position in the local law office. The rest of the bills would have to be paid.


	15. Year 14

_(Author's Note: Sorry about the long wait, everyone! I hope the next few chapters will make up for it. Schedule is back to normal now so hopefully no more extended breaks will be happening.)_

Sherlock Holmes was fourteen years old the first time he was brought into the police station on suspicion of murder.

Mycroft kept himself quite busy during his third year at university, balancing perfect grades, several student leadership positions, and a job at the law office. Despite all this, he still managed to keep close tabs on his little brother. He did this through the clever use of spies—teachers, neighbors, the occasional family relation who could stop by during the weekend. He didn't trust Mummy to look after Sherlock, at least not as closely as a fourteen-year-old with Sherlock's capabilities needed to be looked after.

Because of this arrangement, Mycroft was aware of the fact that for the past year, Sherlock had been involving himself, without invitation, in local police cases. This had generally consisted of calling up the station with constant tips and suggestions, and up until this point, Mycroft had been content to say very little about it. It seemed, after all, the only thing that kept his brother at peace with the world, and not trying to tear things apart out of sheer meaningless boredom.

This particular incident, however, did quite a bit to change his mind.

"This is ridiculous, he is fourteen years old," Mycroft told the officer promptly, flicking his umbrella closed as he strode through the door without waiting to hear a proper account of the circumstances. "I want him released at once."

"You must be Mr. Holmes…" the officer started, going to shake his hand, but Mycroft had been called here from work and was entirely not in the mood for introductions. He pulled back from the handshake.

"You've no right to hold my brother. Bring him out immediately."

"We're just asking a few questions, that's all," the officer assured him. "We think he might be…well, the boy appears to have intimate knowledge of the case, which is a bit…"

"Suspicious?" Mycroft finished. "Idiots, he's a genius, not a criminal. He's got intimate knowledge of everything. Haven't you been getting phone tips from the kid? You suppose he's behind all those cases, as well?"

"We have… yes, we have gotten a few tips…" the man replied, looking up at Mycroft warily. At age twenty, the elder Holmes brother had become a tall and commanding presence.

"Then I don't see why I'm here," he said with a sigh, and brushed past the man to the door at the back of the room. He imagined this was as good a place as any to start looking for Sherlock.

"Sir, you can't go back there!" the officer exclaimed, catching him by the elbow. "Sir, please sit down. The boy gave us details about the murder weapon and about the event itself that simply couldn't be known by anyone not connected to the case. He's also displayed some…tendencies…"

Mycroft spun suddenly, feeling the heat of blood rising to his face. He'd said terrible things to Sherlock before, he knew that, but the fact remained that at the end of the day he _knew_ his brother. A boy who didn't fight back against bullies unless they insulted his mother. A boy who'd never had a friend, who didn't understand most emotions but still felt them. Sherlock was only trying, in his own strange way, to help.

"My brother," Mycroft hissed, "is _not_ a psychopath. He has no history of violence, he has no motive, and he is fourteen years old. I am the son of Beckett Holmes, personal friend of the Dean of the University, and if I have a list of at least six lawyers I work with who would take this case as a personal favor. Would you like to continue to question Sherlock, or are we finished here?"

Sherlock emerged a few minutes later with a petulant and annoyed expression.

"That was tedious," he muttered.

Mycroft herded him out to the car and asked angrily, "How could you possibly think it was a good idea to get involved in a murder case?"

"They needed my help," the boy replied. "Besides, how could I know they'd assume I knew the killer? Or was the killer? I told them five times it has to be a Swedish immigrant. The weapon—"

"Sherlock," Mycroft interrupted. "You shouldn't be poking around in police business, alright? You've got to stop that. You're a child."

"I'm not a child!" the boy cried indignantly, sweeping a lock of unruly dark hair away from his face to glare fiercely at his brother. Mycroft kept his eyes on the road.

"You are, and it wouldn't kill you to act like one. Couldn't you engage yourself in a few… _normal _activities? For once?"

"Like what?" asked Sherlock, sounding genuinely confused.

"Play a sport, join a club, get a girlfriend," Mycroft suggested. Sherlock chuckled.

"That's rich from you, Mycroft. As if you've ever had a girlfriend."

"Of course I haven't, I've been too busy mothering you, you prick," Mycroft retorted.

"And spying on me," Sherlock muttered. Mycroft sighed. Of course Sherlock knew about that.

"Well, I have to. Where would you be right now if your teacher hadn't called to say you'd been brought to the police station?"

There was a long silence from Sherlock, who stared out the opposite window. Finally Mycroft added, "You can't call the police station anymore. If you want to do that sort of thing, you'll have to wait until you're an adult. I don't want you getting into trouble and you know I'll find out if you do."

"What else am I supposed to _do_, Mycroft?" Sherlock whined. "I'm not good at anything else! Everything's boring!"

"Sherlock, people don't understand you. If you keep putting yourself in the middle of crimes, people will think you're a criminal."

"You mean they don't understand me because I'm a freak and can't make friends."

Mycroft almost groaned. Age fourteen, and they were finally hitting the angsty teen phase. He'd hoped that maybe Sherlock would skip over that.

"You could make friends if you tried," he said encouragingly.

"People are either confused or frightened by me. It's fine, I wouldn't know what to do with friends if I had them. I just want to solve things, that's all. Science, philosophy, I understand them, I'm good at them, but they're not _useful_ unless you apply them. I can watch people, learn how they work, but if people don't want to hear what I know then what good is it?"

"Someday, when you grow up, you'll be an inspector, or a detective or some-such thing," said Mycroft. "And people will listen to you and they'll appreciate it. But right now you're a child and you can't go poking around in crime scenes, understand?"

Sherlock sighed and once more turned to stare out the window.

"Yes, fine," he agreed, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "Since it's an order from the great Mycroft Holmes, I can't very well deny it, can I?"


	16. Year 15

Almost as soon as Mycroft walked in the door on the first day of spring holidays, Mummy latched onto his arm and announced, "I'm worried about Sherlock."

"Of course you are," said Mycroft, setting down his bags in the hallway. "Everyone is. Constantly."

"He talks to a skull," Mummy continued. Mycroft frowned.

"Concerning," he agreed.

"I know I'm not great, I'm not a good mother, I know I forget things and I don't spend enough time—"

"Hush, Mummy," Mycroft insisted, gently leading her into the living room. "Sit down. It's not your fault, it's mine. I've cut him off from police cases and now he's throwing a tantrum. I'll talk to him."

This much was mostly true. Within the past six months, the now fifteen-year-old had tried numerous ways to get back onto crime scenes, and Mycroft, who was ever-watchful now from his place as a personal and quite favored assistant to a prominent cabinet member, had prevented these attempts, quietly and efficiently. In light of these failures, Sherlock had begun lashing out in school again, building things in the basement, and taking frequent trips to the morgue.

Mycroft found his brother just outside the backdoor, leaning against the side of the house and smoking a cigarette. Sherlock was technically too young to smoke, but it was just one more new habit born of teenage boredom, and Mycroft had decided it wasn't worth the fight.

"Come to lecture me?" the boy asked, smoke pouring out of his mouth with the words. Mycroft sighed heavily.

"Mummy's worried. She says you've been talking to a skull."

"When I was younger I spoke to my toys, I don't see much of a difference."

"A real, human skull?"

"It's a friend of mine."

"Did you steal it from the morgue?"

"Of course not! There's an intern who lets me in. She gave it to me. Wasn't missed."

Sherlock took a long drag on the cigarette, falling silent. Mycroft studied his brother carefully, sifting mentally through solutions. He wouldn't be around much longer to look after the family, at least not in person—he needed his own life, and he needed things sorted before then.

"You've also taken up drinking, I hear," he said after a moment.

"Don't be such a prude, Mycroft, everyone drinks. The sensation is interesting but by no means addictive."

"You got drunk as an experiment?"

"Mainly, yes."

A call came from inside, Mummy telling them to come in for dinner. Mycroft assured her they were coming and then turned back to his brother.

"I know you're doing this because you can't do what you want—"

"I can, you won't let me," Sherlock interrupted. "Prick."

"But," Mycroft continued, unfaltering, "you only have to wait a few more years and then you can become a police officer and solve crimes all you want. I keep telling you."

Sherlock scoffed, putting out his cigarette on the stone patio.

"I don't want to be a police officer. They don't solve crimes."

"An inspector, then."

"God, no. And sit in an office, fill out paperwork? I don't want to work for the police. I'll work for myself and they can consult me when they're out of their depth. Which is always."

"I don't believe that job exists," said Mycroft.

"I'll be the first." Sherlock turned heading for the door to go inside, but Mycroft stopped him.

"Wait."

The fifteen-year-old turned towards his older brother curiously, meeting his eyes for the first time, then sweeping his gaze up and down.

"Oh," he said. "What are you hiding, then?"

"I'm not hiding anything," Mycroft said. "I just want to remind you that this year is my last year at university. I'm graduating soon."

"As I am aware," said Sherlock. "University lasts four years. Congratulations."

"I'm moving to London."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows, looking at his brother with surprise.

"Well," he said finally. "Mummy won't be pleased."

"The man I'm working for now has offered me my own office," Mycroft continued. "My own position. It's a chance to move into politics, just out of university, and I'm going to take it."

"Not an opportunity normally afforded to graduates in their early twenties. You can charm your way into anything, can't you?"

"I have a way with words," Mycroft hissed with annoyance. "Listen, I know Mummy will be upset when she hears."

"Obviously. She already complains you don't visit often enough and you're hardly a half-hour away from the house."

"Right, fine. And I will tell her eventually. But you have to promise to behave."

"When you're gone?" Sherlock asked, a smile appearing on his face. "Won't you still have spies in the area, Mycroft?"

"I don't want you upsetting Mummy," said Mycroft harshly.

"You don't want me soiling the family name," Sherlock corrected. "Now that you're about to be in the public eye."

"I am the family name," said Mycroft. "You're a child, Mummy doesn't work and Father's become a hermit. Until you leave the house, just please, for the love of god, try not to ruin things, alright?"

There was another call from inside the house, and Sherlock shouted, "Coming!" and the two of them slipped inside, Mycroft following just a few steps behind his little brother, feeling like he knew exactly where this was going to end. He knew his brother better than anyone else, after all—Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant disaster waiting to happen.


	17. Year 16

Mycroft enjoyed London. He enjoyed it more for the energy and power of his work, and for the freedom of his position, than for the city itself. He had his own flat, his own office, and though his position was spectacularly unimportant by the job description, his words held more weight than most. He could see a future for himself here—and, perhaps lovelier still, he didn't have to see his past.

Of course it bothered him, the reports that came in, and he was often sending people to check in on Mummy and Sherlock. Sherlock did not keep out of trouble, and Mummy was progressively worse. She had switched medications again, and had taken the news of Mycroft leaving quite harshly. Most parents understood that their children would move away when they grew up, but Mummy seemed to cling to her children more tightly, terrified of losing them—especially Mycroft, both her provider and her darling.

Over the past month, the situation with Sherlock had gotten wildly out of hand. He'd already been caught with drugs a few times, and Mycroft had sent people to get him out of trouble. The boy was sixteen and, hopefully, caught in the swing of a rebellious phase that, like everything with Sherlock, escalated faster than with normal people. That, at least, was the hope. Until two days ago, when he'd been out all night, and driven Mummy to distraction, and been caught _again_, and Mycroft decided that enough was enough. Mummy simply couldn't control him. She never knew where he was at any given time, and left him alone at the house far too much. The only available option was to call Father and demand that he send someone to pick up Sherlock and take him back to the estate where they'd grown up, at least for a while. Father and Sherlock did not get along, but at the very least Father was always home, and had people at hand who were always watching, and the man did listen to what Mycroft asked. Sherlock would be safe with Father until Mycroft could come up with something else to do with him.

So when, two days after this arrangement was made, Mycroft returned home to his flat in the evening to find his brother sprawled on the couch and the contents of his dresser drawers spread across the living room floor, he was more than surprised.

"Hello, brother dear," said Sherlock, smirking. Mycroft took a deep breath, closed the door behind him, and set the keys on the coffee table.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Investigating," said Sherlock, holding one of Mycroft's journals up above his head. Mycroft snatched it away, fuming. There were supposed to be ways to prevent this. Ways to keep this wild teenager from running off, from sneaking onto a train and—how had he even gotten into the apartment? But of course this was Sherlock. And no one had noticed him missing from Father's because he'd probably thought of all the things people would look for and covered his tracks completely.

"You should be at home," Mycroft fumed. "Mummy will worry, everyone will worry."

"Mummy will worry?" Sherlock asked. His eyes were not quite right, his movements too large, his voice too thick. Mycroft had seen him like this one time before. He was either just coming off a high or just starting one. Sherlock stood, smiling bitterly.

"Mummy," he continued. "You mean the woman you left? Do you have any idea what's happening with her? She's falling apart."

"I sent a nurse to look after her."

"Even I know that's pathetic, Mycroft."

"You shouldn't be here," Mycroft snapped, turning heel and heading to the kitchen, grabbing his home phone off the counter. "I can't do this right now. I'm sending you home."

"You sent me away!" The sudden explosion of Sherlock's voice rang through the room, a desperate, angry shout. There was emotion in his eyes, tears even, the kind of depth that only came through at times like this.

"I sent you to someone who could look after you," said Mycroft, slamming the phone back down, meeting his brother eye-to-eye. They were nearly the same height now, though Sherlock was all skin and bones. "Mummy can't handle you, and I'm trying to have a life here. You're a mess, do you know I've stopped you being arrested three times this year? Three times! Someone's got to look after you!"

Sherlock leaned closer to his brother and hissed, "You sent me to _that man_—"

"I sent you home with Father."

At this there was a sudden change in Sherlock's face, from anger to a masked amusement, and he laughed and stepped back.

"Oh, come now, Mycroft," he said. "Let's not pretend I don't know that your father only took me in as a favor to you."

"_My_ father?"

"Yes, yours." The sixteen-year-old shrugged his shoulders absently and leaned against the counter. "I mean, look at us. It's a wonder we even share half the same genes."

At Sherlock's pointed glanced, Mycroft was forced to think about how right he was. Sherlock, with his dark hair and tall, thin frame, looked nothing like Mycroft—always a bit round, always a bit unintimidating at first, with hair nearly ginger and with none of Sherlock's rampant curls. Mycroft gave up the fight and sat down wearily at one of his kitchen chairs.

"Sherlock, you've given me no other options. I can't be your mother forever, I've been looking after you since you were three years old and picking dinner guests' pockets, it's exhausting."

"I am _under control_," Sherlock insisted. "I don't need you looking after me. Spying on me, sending people to kidnap me—"

"Nobody kidnapped you!"

"I'm underage, I was coerced into a car and taken to a house I don't live in, I believe that is by definition a kidnapping."

"You grew up there, Sherlock, for god's sake. Do you have any idea how impossible you are?"

"Yes, it must be so difficult," said Sherlock, rolling his eyes and leaning unsteadily against the kitchen table. Mycroft looked him up and down skeptically.

"The drugs have got to stop," he said. "You can go back to Mummy's if you just stop it."

"Yes, alright. I promise."

"You promise?"

"Yes."

Mycroft sighed, stood up, and went to the phone. He'd call and let his parents know that Sherlock was in London and staying with him for the night, and he'd send the troublemaker back in the morning. In the meantime, he would sit around and hope feebly that Sherlock actually meant what he said about promising.

He was twenty-two, and already felt far too old for this.


	18. Year 17

There was a year. A single year—well not quite, it was eleven months actually—of relative calm. Mummy was upset, of course, still frightened about her sons growing up, and reasonably distressed at the obvious distrust Mycroft held for her when it came to keeping Sherlock safe and out of trouble. But the promise kept, mostly. The live-in nurse and housekeeper kept an eye on him, reported to Mycroft. There was a good deal of smoking and a bit of drinking and there was a new habit of carrying the skull around and speaking to it in public places but all in all, there was less of the behavior that was truly worrisome.

Then there was the moment when everything fell apart and Mycroft found himself home again, standing halfway down the stairs to the basement and staring down at Sherlock lying flat on his back on the cement floor, surrounded by a hundred paper cups full of dirt and ash, plucking at the strings of his violin, and unquestionably under the influence of something _strong_.

"Do you want to explain what's going on here?" Mycroft demanded. He could not descend the staircase any further; he could not uncurl his fists.

"I've been cataloguing types of tobacco ash," said Sherlock, an aimless smile on his face. "In the cups." He waved a single long, thin hand and went back to plucking.

"Have you catalogued what's currently in your bloodstream?"

"Something prescription, it's very good," Sherlock replied, giggling. "I've forgotten what it's called."

"You promised you would stop this."

"I _did _but it was not my fault. I mean I had to do something. Mummy's got a ring. It got noisy up here." He tapped the top of his own shaggy head.

"What about a ring?"

"A ring. A _ring_. Didn't you hear me?" Sherlock sat up, rocking a bit, looking dizzy. He pointed at his own finger and mouthed again, _ring. _

"What's that got to do with—"

"A ring, an engagement ring, god you're thick! Her boyfriend wants to marry her!"

That shook Mycroft out of his angry haze for a moment and he frowned in confusion, fists relaxing. Her boyfriend? Which one was that? How many had she had now? It was easy to lose track. And why wouldn't she have told him?

"When did he propose?" Mycroft asked.

"He hasn't yet," said Sherlock, rolling his eyes grandly. "He will."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know he's got the ring and I can't find anything wrong with him, there's no leverage with him, there's no mental instability, there's _nothing_ to send him off with like the others—"

"Wait," Mycroft interrupted. "Wait. The others?"

"The other boyfriends, yes." Sherlock crossed his legs clumsily, cradling the violin in his lap.

"You're telling me you ran off all Mummy's other boyfriends?"

"I researched them."

"And?"

"They were unsuitable."

Mycroft sighed and finally descended the last few steps, sitting down on the last one and looking his brother in the eye. Sherlock suddenly laughed.

"He's trying to keep the ring a secret," the boy said, gasping. "It's so _obvious_. I don't remember his name."

"That's not important," said Mycroft. "He's not the problem here. You are."

"Oh, you mean me soiling the family name?" Sherlock asked, laughing and grabbing the violin bow off the floor beside him.

"No, I mean you soiling your health and legal record," said Mycroft, taking a deep breath as Sherlock began scraping away at the violin. Suddenly unable to contain his frustration, he reached out and snatched the bow away, knocking over several of the paper cups as he did so. Sherlock looked up at him with wide eyes.

"You should go home, Mycroft," he said. "Go home to London. Go out, earn the respect of the world, have tea with the queen, start wars and brainwash men and control the whole world if it'll make you feel better about the fact you've outgrown controlling me."

There was a sudden silence, and it hung there, thick and deep over the dampness of the basement. Mycroft stood slowly, covering his eyes with his hand, trying to picture the baby whose first word had been Mycroft's name, the toddler who pretended to cry so people would think he was normal, the little boy who talked to a teddy bear for lack of friends and wouldn't stop throwing a fit until his big brother told him so.

"I am going back to London," he said. "You're coming with me."

"No I'm not."

"Yes, you are, and you're going to stay where I tell you to and do what I tell you to and get clean so you can go to university next year. You've brought it on yourself, remember. I don't see why you feel the need to do…this." He waved his hand at the cups and at Sherlock himself sitting there cross-legged on the basement floor, blinking with confusion.

"What else am I supposed to do?" he asked angrily, standing up, knocking over more cups as he did so, unsteady on his feet. "I don't have friends, I don't have you, I certainly don't have Mummy, no one understands a single word I'm saying, _ever_—" Panting with anger, Sherlock grabbed a fistful of his hair and continued, "There's a thousand wheels turning up here every second and there's nothing to do with it, no other way to make it quiet, no one to stand around looking impressed the way people stand around you! I see _everything_. And no one sees me. What else am I supposed to do?"

"Anything but this!" Mycroft shouted, grabbing his brother's wrist and holding tight. "You're seventeen and you're a genius, life keeps going!"

"Life is _boring_," Shelock moaned. "It's so boring."

"You're pathetic." It came out with a sigh, and Mycroft dropped Sherlock's wrist, stepping back towards the stairs, shaking his head. "I'll have the housekeeper pack a bag for you, we're leaving."

"Mummy will love that, I'm sure."

"Mummy will live. Who knows, according to you, maybe she'll get married."

"Oh it's not a maybe," said Sherlock, shaking his head and giggling again. "It'll happen. It's going to happen. If you see time as linear it's an inevitable point. If you see time as more…" Words seemed to escape him and he wiggled his fingers around and finished, "well, then, it's already happened."

Mycroft rolled his eyes and yelled up to the housekeeper at the top of the stairs if she wouldn't mind getting a bag together for Sherlock. Mummy was out for the night, of course—probably with this boyfriend who worried Sherlock so much. Mycroft turned back to his brother.

"Why do you care?" he asked seriously. "Why do you care if she gets married?"

"I don't know. I don't care. Do I? Why do I?" Sherlock shook his head, bewildered. "I suppose there's nothing else to do around here."

"You're seventeen," said Mycroft. "If you can get clean in a year you can go to university. You won't even be around. If you can't find anything wrong with him, if Mummy likes him, why not let her be happy?"

"He bothers me. He smells. He laughs too loud. I don't want to sit with him at Christmas."

Mycroft knew it was a bit useless to argue with Sherlock when he was high, but there was also an element of talkative honesty that he couldn't reach at any other time. He had to admit to himself that he was still curious about his little brother, about the great mystery of how Sherlock's mind really worked.

"Those are the sorts of things you deal with and ignore," Mycroft said gently. "So you can let other people be happy."

"Why should I? I'm not happy with him."

"Because that's what you do when you love someone."

"Why? Why do you love someone and let them do things that you don't want them to? Why do people care?"

"That's…" Mycroft found himself a bit lost for words, never having imagined he'd ever have this conversation with his logical little brother. "That's just what love is."

"Then I don't love her!" Sherlock shouted angrily, kicking at a cluster of paper cups and sending ash across the floor. "I don't love anyone because I don't understand what love is! The way people madly obsess over each other, the way Mummy still pines over the man who kicked her out years ago, is that it?"

"No," Mycroft replied, his voice strong as he grabbed Sherlock by the elbow and started guiding him up the stairs. "It's the way one person shows up at three in the morning to drag the other one up off the floor kicking and screaming to send him off to get his life together and I don't care what you say about it, it doesn't make a bit of difference and I will cuff you if I have to."

Sherlock huffed and pulled half-heartedly at Mycroft's grip on his arm, fighting as his brother tried to help him get his coat on.

"I hate you," the boy muttered crossly.

"I didn't say love was reciprocal."

"I'm the only person on earth you even give a damn about, aren't I?" he asked, smirking. Mycroft took the bag from the housekeeper and guided Sherlock towards the front door.

"Yes," he replied, "and look what it gets me into. Count yourself lucky you don't understand it, Sherlock. Caring is not an advantage."


	19. Year 18

Sherlock had grown. Grown up, in fact, now that Mycroft took the time to notice it. It must have been this way for a long while now, but Mycroft had been too preoccupied with his brother's childish behavior to notice the adult that now stood leaning against the car, waiting to be set loose on the world. Sherlock was eighteen now, off to university—a frightening thought. The knobby knees and gangly limbs of adolescence had disappeared. So had the bleach-stained polos and the teenage slouch. He wore a button-down purple shirt now, the color of royalty, starched and pressed by the housekeeper before he left, and black slacks, and shiny black shoes. His dark curls hung down long and unruly over his ears but still becoming, and he carried that familiar bored expression in his striking blue eyes, his mother's eyes. The pale skin, that was from his mother too, but the thin build and the sharp cheekbones that straightened his face were from somewhere else entirely.

"You're worried," said Sherlock. He gave his brother the signature look of a kid who has always known nearly everything.

"Of course I'm worried, I'm sending you off to university. Everyone here's got a worried parent with them."

"University isn't what you're worried about."

And then the knowing look. The past year had been hard. Sherlock hadn't forgiven his brother for the ordeal with the drugs and being forcefully sent away to recover. He kept saying it was a one-time occurrence, promising he'd never do it again, but that promise had been used up already and Mycroft had never been willing to take chances.

Of course, the way Mummy had reacted to the situation was perhaps, in Sherlock's eyes, even worse than the fact of being dragged off to London, but that wasn't up for discussion.

"You'll be fine," said Mycroft, smiling half-heartedly.

"And you'll be watching," Sherlock replied. That much was true enough. Mycroft was always watching through someone, even when he was away, had always been watching, but somehow as he looked at his brother now he realized all that watching hadn't prepared him for the seeing. Seeing Sherlock now, grown up, angry, bored, moving on. No longer running around playing pirates. No longer willing to listen to the advice of his brother, who was once the only person on earth he'd even consider obeying. It had been a while.

"You won't get into trouble, will you?"

"Not at all."

Sherlock shrugged on the backpack sitting by his feet, looking up towards the brick walls of his new flat and raising his eyebrows at Mycroft, silently asking to leave. Mycroft knew there should be more to it than this. He had practically raised this child, but he felt next to nothing. It had been a long year of rehabilitation and revisiting old wounds, of Mummy crying and Sherlock shouting and by this time, by the time they'd gotten out of it, after all the cruel things he'd done for his brother's own good, Mycroft didn't feel like he had emotions anymore. Sherlock's brilliant eyes looked sharp as ever but unmoved—interested, still, in the workings of science and in solving puzzles, but no longer bothering to try to understand people.

Mycroft did feel guilty. For all the yelling he'd done, for the tough love, for making Sherlock attend Mummy's wedding and for the fact that she was off on honeymoon instead of here saying goodbye. The feeling was dull, though, buried by duty and professionalism, almost more of a clinical sensation to study and examine than the truly feel. He became more like he brother day by day, he thought. Besides, there wasn't just guilt, there was also pride—he was proud of Sherlock, for making it this far, though he wouldn't say it.

"You know at some point you're going to have to leave," the eighteen-year-old pointed out, a hatefully bored look on his face.

"I'm aware," Mycroft replied curtly. "You have all of your books?"

"To my knowledge none have disappeared since the last time you checked."

"And you know I've already spoken to your roommate so there'll be no—"

"I've been off for six months. I'm only likely to get back on again if you keep pestering me."

"And you're sure you've got—hold on a moment." Mycroft turned to answer the buzzing of his phone, probably a work call begging for advice or instruction. Over the past few years he had made himself incredibly necessary to everyone around him. It was a good respite from watching over Sherlock, who refused his help constantly.

He turned away from his little brother for a moment to take the call, and when he turned back, Sherlock had disappeared. He glanced around wildly only to see he'd started walking towards the dormitory already.

"Wait!" Sherlock flinched away as Mycroft caught his arm.

"There is nothing you could possibly remind me of that I won't find tedious," the boy muttered sullenly. "Just go back to work."

Mycroft knew this was it, now. This was the extent of what he would get from Sherlock, from now on. There would be no hugs, or tearful goodbyes—as if there ever could have been. But he still felt he ought to say something. What did parents normally say? To make friends, to pay attention in class, to have fun. But Sherlock would not make friends, and he already paid far too much attention to everything, and as for fun… well, if he could find a way to get into the chemistry lab at night, then he might enjoy himself.

"Don't feel the need to give advice," said the youth. "Think of it this way: I'll not trouble you anymore." He shrugged the bag on his shoulder further up and pushed a stray dark curl out of his eye, glancing back impatiently at the building behind him.

"You've always troubled me," said Mycroft. "You always will."

"You should really learn not to waste your worry on people who aren't your friends, brother dear." The sarcastic quip came out with a smile that looked foreign on Sherlock's solemn face.

"No? I suppose you're right, friend doesn't quite work."

"For someone who constantly kidnaps me, drags me around, takes my things and destroys my experiments? I'd call you my enemy."

"That's a bit dramatic."

"The entire Holmes family is a bit dramatic," Sherlock replied. "Or so I'm told."

Mycroft sighed and took a step back towards the car, knowing when he wasn't wanted. "I trust you won't miss me."

"It shouldn't be surprising, since you won't miss me either," said Sherlock. But he was wrong. As Mycroft watched his turn his back and disappear, as he climbed into the car, he realized he wouldn't miss the trouble, he wouldn't miss the clever insults and the headstrong disobedience at every turn, he wouldn't miss nightly searches for banned substances and weekly discoveries of unsavory experiments in the kitchen. But he would miss something. He would miss the face of the little genius, the boy who wanted to be a pirate.

And in some strange, detached, perhaps unhealthy sort of way, he would miss being Mother.


	20. Epilogue

_Author's Note: I'm sorry about the long wait so I decided to give you a bit extra here at the end as an apology! Thank you, everyone, for your reviews and favorites. Writing this story has been so much better than I expected and I've loved the experience. If you want more, I've just posted the first chapter of a companion story about John and Harry Watson called "It's All Fine." Feel free to check that out on my page and again, thanks so much, readers!_

"Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson."

The first time he said the names together, as he watched them walk, giggling, away from the crime scene side-by-side, Mycroft was surprised at the way they fit together. The sound of the names flowed in a gentle rhythm off his tongue, which was strange not so much because he hadn't expected _this pair_, but because he'd never expected to place the name "Sherlock Holmes" into a pair at all. Sherlock was a name never before found alongside another name. Even "Sherlock and Mycroft" was rarely uttered, even when they were children. Sherlock was always separate.

If there had ever been a time when Mycroft had hoped for Sherlock connecting with a human being, it had been when he first started working with Greg Lestrade. Even then, it hadn't been exactly a conventional friendship, but the man stuck with Sherlock, and put up with all of his crazy in order to get at the genius beneath it, and if anything he could give Sherlock something Mycroft never could—something to _do._ The past few years had been ten times easier because of Lestrade, though still not easy. But this new…assistant? Companion? Unusually interested flatmate? Well now. This was different.

Still deep in thought, Mycroft called Lestrade over to him with an impatient wave of his hand.

"Don't bother looking for the shooter," he told the Inspector. "It was John Watson, there."

Greg raised his eyebrows and stared after the pair of them, just pulling away in the back of a taxi.

"Should I—should I arrest him?" the man asked, confused, and Mycroft sighed.

"He's just saved my idiot brother's life. Arrest him and I'll get you fired."

"Right, right. I thought we were beyond the threats."

"You know I appreciate what you've done for Sherlock," said Mycroft. "I'm interested in seeing what this Doctor will do for him. Goodnight, Inspector." With a curt nod, Mycroft slipped into the back of his car as it pulled up, beckoning Anthea to follow.

"Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson," he said again to himself, a half-whispered murmur of curiosity as he stared out the window at the evening lights of London. A man who refused to be frightened by Mycroft, who stood loyally by Sherlock and refused to spy on him before he even knew him, a man who limped because he missed war, missed being useful. A man who would even consider living, permanently, with Sherlock—and days later, risking a great deal to save his life.

It had been a great long time since he'd thought about the old Sherlock, the little boy Sherlock, the one Mycroft was meant to look after. Of late there had been very few appearances of that one. It was all Sherlock the archenemy, the pest to drag home for Christmas dinner, the precocious consulting detective about whom he could only gain information from Lestrade and that girl at the morgue. In other words, in Mycroft's mind, it was long since he'd been thought of as anything but Difficult.

Mycroft smiled. He cared very little about the nature of the relationship between his brother and John Watson. He'd only been half-kidding about the happy announcement, and only because friend seemed the more far-fetched idea. But the nature of it didn't matter, so long as Sherlock could manage to make it last. The important this was, it would seem, that after all this time, Sherlock had finally found someone else to look after him. What a charming relief.


End file.
